Biden administration’s laser-focus on diversity draws scrutiny and some gasps

Diversity and inclusiveness have been hallmarks of the Biden administration.

In his Cabinet and federal agencies, the president has made the hirings of underrepresented races, ethnicities and gender identities a top goal — even to the point of including the relatively narrow demographic of gender-fluid animalism and bondage enthusiasts.

The effort has attracted praise from diversity advocates and criticism from those questioning the limitations of such a policy. 

According to the Alliance for Justice, which promotes diversity in the judicial system, 65% of President Biden’s nominees to the federal bench are people of color and 73% are women. Mr. Biden also has ensured that his administration is the most diverse in history. Among those tapped to serve in high-level positions was Rachel Levine. She became the nation’s highest-ranking openly transgender woman when she was appointed last year to serve as the assistant secretary of health. 

In Mr. Biden’s latest effort to diversify the judicial branch, he pledged to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer. Racial justice advocates demanded the move, though critics warned that it would rule out other qualified candidates.

The Energy Department made a diverse appointment last month, but to a less-prominent role, when it hired Sam Brinton to serve as the deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition in the office of nuclear energy.

Although the position generally attracts little attention, Brinton’s social media presence quickly generated buzz.

Brinton earned a dual master’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nuclear engineering and technology and policy and is an LGBTQ advocate. 

Brinton identifies as “genderqueer” and promotes sexual fetishes on social media and in visits to colleges and universities. Brinton has publicly expounded on the pleasures of simulated sex with men posing as dogs. 

Brinton celebrated the new job with the Energy Department in a tweet last month. 

“I’ll even be (to my knowledge) the first gender fluid person in federal government leadership,” Brinton tweeted. “But most importantly, I am going to be responsible for finding solutions to a problem I have dedicated my life to that has been stymied for decades.”

Provocative social media posts showing Brinton standing over a man donning a dog collar and leash quickly went viral, as did pictures of Brinton wearing pink stilettos and sporting a red mohawk haircut.

Brinton’s job with the Energy Department doesn’t require Senate approval. It is considered a nonpolitical position, but some see the appointment as a Biden administration attempt to take its pledge to diversify the federal government to an extreme by naming an activist to a high-level government position. 

“On his website he talks about how he likes to wear women’s clothing into the workplace as a way to provoke people into having ‘conversations’ about LGBT matters,” Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative, wrote recently. “A figure like that is toxic in the workplace. If Brinton were a loud, aggressive fundamentalist Christian evangelist who bragged that he enjoyed provoking people into having conversations about their religious beliefs, he wouldn’t get hired by most places because he would constantly be stirring up trouble. I’m a conservative Christian, and I wouldn’t hire such a person.”

Brinton was hired after the White House late last year issued the 42-page National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, which calls for a “whole of government approach” to close the gender gap and address other forms of discrimination that have harmed the LGBTQ community.  

The paper calls on the government to address the impact of intersectional discrimination, which it describes as a combination of potential disadvantages, including race, gender and sexual orientation.

“Ensuring that all people have the opportunity to live up to their full potential, regardless of gender identity or other factors, is not only a moral imperative, it is a strategic imperative,” Biden administration officials wrote in the document.

Jay Richards and Grace Melton of The Heritage Foundation released their analysis of the White House’s gender equality strategy last week. They said the plan would erase policies acknowledging biological differences between men and women and would force equal outcomes in a way that would ultimately result in unequal treatment of individuals. 

In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Richards said the Biden administration’s gender equity directive “creates this kind of radicalism with respect to these sorts of appointments where you actually want to look for someone that’s as far out as you possibly can, in order to get all the boxes checked.”

The policy may also dilute the quality of the workforce, Mr. Richards said. 

“It’s one thing to say, ‘We’re going to find the most qualified person, whether it’s a man or a woman, Black or White, gay or straight,’” Mr. Richardson said. “But these categories are counted. That’s the point about the intersectional approach is that their status in these identity groups actually counts as a part of the qualification.”

Brinton’s resume suggests that the Department of Energy is hiring a qualified candidate. Brinton also advised the Trump administration on nuclear waste matters, according to a Wikipedia entry. 

In addition to expertise in nuclear engineering, Brinton lobbies against conversion therapy programs, which attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and is a suicide prevention advocate.

In an interview with an MIT publication, Brinton described being called a “weird” kind of Batman.

“Because by day I work to save lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth from suicide, and by night I work to save the world from nuclear waste-related environmental disaster.”